What comes of desperation?

Rewriting this because somehow, most of my post was somehow deleted while I posting it. This is a much shorter version as I am not inclined to rewrite as much as I wrote previously, and to be honest, did not have any notes to work from. Below is my attempt to game theory out why Kamala Harris is going to be interviewed on Fox News.

Tomorrow on Fox News (Fox News!) Kamala Harris is going to sit down for an interview. This is very likely going to be her first, and only, real interview this election cycle. Why is this happening now? I have a few thoughts.

Wednesday— I’ll have an exclusive interview with Vice President Harris on #SpecialReport. pic.twitter.com/Ry63iNH4fW

— Bret Baier (@BretBaier) October 14, 2024

Kamala Harris would not be sitting for an interview with a 'hostile' Fox News unless her campaign knew the truth; she's losing. But what will come from this interview?  I see two ways the interview can go, and possible outcomes that result from that.  The first factor is whether or not Fox News asks her tough questions.

There's no guarantee that Fox News actually does ask Kamala Harris tough questions.  It's one thing to have journalistic standards and wanting to get answers to tough questions. But that's not all that motivates newsrooms. There's money, there's viewership, there's acceptance among peers and/or interviewees. None of these things should play into investigative reporting or interviews - but they do. Worse still; there's politics. Any of these could lead to Fox giving a softball interview to Harris. 

Money in the form of powerful advertisers with a lot of financial pull who might be pro-DEI, would not take kindly to Fox hammering Harris. Money drives business and alienating current and/or potential advertisers is not something Fox would want to do.  There are a lot of woke companies out there with a lot of money.

From a viewership perspective, while Fox will get eyeballs for the interview, an unduly hard interview might scare off potential disaffected centrist viewers who tuned in specifically for this and got hit with a meme; Fox is unfair and biased against Democrats. No viewership growth would come of it.  Conversely an even handed interview might grow viewership and be a better long run strategy. 

Fox has drifted towards the center since Rupert Murdoch handed off control to his children. They are far less conservative than their father. But there's also the idea of media acceptance.  Fox News, and Fox television in general has always been an outsider in the industry.  Playing along with CBS, NBC et. al. would go a long way to garnering not necessarily clout, but perhaps acceptance, within the industry.  We cannot pretend that such things do not matter to if not Fox, at least those who work there.

If Fox does take it easy on Harris, they will definitely lose viewers from those who currently watch it expecting fair and balanced at a minimum.  Remember, Kamala Harris has not faced anything other than controlled softball interviews so far. People want to see her face tough questions.  If she doesn't get them on Fox News, she will never get them. 

But this is not about Fox, it's about Harris. Another softball interview could easily work in Harris' favor; making her look tough for willing to go toe-to-toe with the 'enemy' and come out shining on the other end, having handled the questions with ease.  I know, I know, I laughed re-reading that myself.

Getting obviously softball questions on Fox could easily backfire too; it would show that she is only going places she knows are safe, and clearly had something lined up with Fox.  It would amplify the elites-agenda-versus-the-common-man notion that is clearly driving the election cycle.  That's not a good outcome for Harris or for Fox News.

All that said, Fox still could go tough on her, and they probably will to at least some extent. If they go too hard, it's a nasty look (but honestly, who cares? Look at what Trump has had to endure since 2015!). But if Fox goes tough but fair Harris could still do well (haha, okay not bloody likely) or get ruined.  If she gets ruined though, don't think the Democratic brain trust hasn't pre-planned for that outcome.

How hard would it be to paint Harris as a victim? "They went after her unfairly because she's a woman." "They went after her unfairly because she's black." "They weren't fact checked as they interviewed her, let us do that for you now." The list goes on. While Harris-as-victim is a really bad look for her if you are say named Putin, there are key voting blocks (women for example) who may feel sympathy as a result. A president should be tough enough to handle a rough ride.  If not, why are they president? Voters shouldn't matter as much as a leader who can take the tough shots and fight back for America and its people, but in an election year, voters matter a lot. 

There's one further possibility here; the back room Democrat elite know Harris has lost and they see no way out, so they are hanging her out to dry, now, while they can make a difference elsewhere. The cabal that runs the left, clearly knew Let's Go Brandon was many, many egg noodles short of a meal. They hid it for years.  When they knew they could no longer hide it, they concocted a plan to deal with him.  The Democrat elite are schemers; they put him out there to debate Trump so far ahead of the nomination, they knew they would have time to replace him with someone nobody voted for in the Democrat primaries. 

Protecting Democracy has always been the last thing on their minds, except maybe as a slogan. They want puppets. When their main puppet was full of holes, they discarded him and grabbed onto the next available option; Kamala Harris.  They are not protecting democracy in doing this; in fact it is the exact opposite.  It's Covid lockdowns all over again.  They're thinking we can get away with this because we own the news. 

What they actually are protecting is their club. Not democracy, not the American people, they are protecting their own grip on power. They want to ensure that the down-ballot impact of a feckless Kamala Harris doesn't affect the senate or congress, and leaves them open to a midterm rebound in 2026.  They have given their puppet one chance to do well, far enough out, so they can react.  A weak performance and you'll see every Democrat in a swing district or state, run from her so far and so fast it will make your head spin. 

After failing to fake a euphoria of joy for Harris, this is Democrat insiders' last best shot at changing the trajectory of the election, whether Harris does well or not. I strongly doubt it will make a positive difference for Harris, but I think the Democrats already know that themselves and no longer care.

Game theory being applied by president Trump on global trade to disrupt the trade imbalance:

Is scandal fatigue going to help the president?

NOTE: I recently started a new job and have had a lot of my time eaten up with learning curve stuff, so I haven't been posting much and will probably be a bit slower than  for the next few days at least.

 

With the flurry of scandals that have haunted the president over the spring seemingly destined to fade over the summer what impact are they likely to have going forward?  I don't possess a crystal ball but I am familiar with game theory.

 

If we plot two axes with magnitude of the scandal impacts on the vertical axis and the immediacy on the horizontal axis (sorry for the lack of accompanying artwork), we can more readily think about potential outcomes.  On the magnitude axis we could have a small (e.g. no presidential wrongdoing/involvement, many of the scandals quietly being compartmentalized and/or just fading away or a compliant press covering up the magnitude of the wrongdoing) or large scandal impact.  On the immediacy axis we can have the scandal(s) blowing up right now or we can have them blowing up and creating fallout right before the 2014 midterms or before the 2016 presidential election.

 

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